Alex Beam in the Boston Globe reveals 22 things he didn’t know (besides Lady Gaga’s real name), inter alia:

15. Here is something you don’t know: There have been four new translations of Virgil’s “Aeneid’’ in the past five years. Dude is Kardashian-level hot!

via Alex Beam doesn’t know Lady Gaga’s real name, among many other things – The Boston Globe.

… okay, I’m thinking Robert Fagles, Sarah Ruden, G.B. Cobbold, Stanley Lombardo, Frederick Ahl (that’s five) … People Magazine has Kim Kardashian as number 10 on their hot list so I think adding another translation will bump Vergil up to Victoria Beckham hot (number seven on People‘s list), primarily because we know she has a Latin phrase tattooed on her wrist (de integro) …

I’m kind of glad I don’t get Syfy … here’s an excerpt  from a television column:

“Destination Truth” is best described as the lovechild between “Ghost Hunters” and Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations,” as Gates spins off witty one-liners and asides in the fast and furious pace of the latter show, and then examines paranormal lore much like the former.

Facile of tongue and feet, Gates and his team investigate unexplained phenomenon around the world that can go from underwater locations to historic buildings or geographic hot spots of alleged ghosts and alien sightings. Nothing is off limits as Gates & Co. look for spirits, leprechauns, Nandi Bears, mermaids, and even Kraken-like giant squids. (Syfy’s Beast Legends premieres September 9 too, and covers the Kraken very well)

Gates and his crew use real ghostbuster equipment similar to the TAPS gang, as they go to old Italy in “Poltergeists of Pompeii” and then Kenya for “Nandi Bear” investigations this premiere episode.

Now if you remember from history class, Pompeii, Italy had a portion of the city obliterated and buried in ash from Vesuvius, which blew in 79 A.D. The explosion from the volcano and its spewing ash and lava killed the residents, whose remains were eerily encased in an ash entombment, later excavated by archaeologists and left as a reminder of the power of mother nature.

Then, Gates goes to the Isle of Ischia where an Italian mystic tells Josh to get a “bomba”, a spherical hollowed rock filled inside with quartz crystal that can be left at the Temple of Isis as an offering of sorts, to invoke the spirits of the ancient city who died so suddenly in the wake of the Vesuvian eruption which buried the city under hundreds of feet of ash.

The city has since been exhumed and is now carefully monitored by Italian officials so that tourists do not overrun the ruins or disturbs the remains that lay there still. The gang pulls an all-nighter to find some dead Italians milling about.

via Destination Truth Josh Gates interview, Nandi bears and Vesuvius in premiere – Monsters and Critics.

… Destination Squirrel seems a better appellation …

Lycidas was criticized big time by Samuel Johnson (as the intro to this piece notes); folks will probably want to read Johnson’s thoughts (lines 180 ff) before reading the commentary to the poem and the poem itself:

• Poem of the week: Lycidas by John Milton | Guardian.